Reed is 17 months old today.  I feel like I say it all the time, but wow time flies.  It is crazy to think of the tiny little infant he was a year ago at this time.  Now he is a full blown toddler who walks and (tries to) talk.  He understands when we ask him questions or tell him to do something.  He has opinions about what he wants to wear to school and he loves his school.  He also loves routine.  Sometimes I think we need to back off of the bath routine a little because he won’t really eat dinner anymore. He is always trying to push out of his chair to run down the hall to his bathroom and bathtub.

It annoys Randy that I put him to bed at 7 because he thinks it’s too early, but you tell me.  I look Reed in the eyes and say, “are you ready to go night-night?”  He stares back at me and reaches for my hand to walk him into his room.  He leads me to his crib and starts trying to pull his favorite green blanket out of his crib.  On the nights I let him pull it out he will put it under his head and lay down on the carpet.  So what do you think…ready to go to sleep?  I think so.  Sorry Husband!  (And P.S he usually doesn’t make a sound when I leave the room and sleeps past 7am!)

He has some words, but we are really the only ones who know what he’s trying to say.  We are working on ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.  His teachers say he will say it to them, but he definitely doesn’t say it to us.  Kids.

He is still a great eater.  He’s picky day to day, but overall he will eat anything.  He really loves food if it comes off of my plate and not his.  This is annoying to me, but a decent weight management plan as well as a good way for him to learn to try new foods.

We always talk about how much he loves water.  But it is getting a little extreme.  He has never had swim lessons, but has been in the pool and lake since he was about 8 weeks old.  Reed’s new trick is running in the baby pool and going face down into the water and kicks his legs.  He intentionally falls forward and puts his face in.  When we pull him back up after a few seconds he tries to push our arm away to go back under.  He also knows how to hold his breath and never comes up spitting water.  I really don’t know how he learned this, or why he has no fear…but I love it.  However, if I had a pool in my backyard I would be a nervous wreck!!!

-JB

One of the best side affects from Reed starting day care 5 weeks ago is that now he spends 9 hours a day in a room with 11 other children. When he gets home all he wants is some love and attention from us!!! It has been so wonderful for him to come running to my arms and want hugs and kisses. Maybe I should have sent him to day care a long time ago…

Reed LLLLOOOOOVVVVES water. He loves splashing in it, he loves getting sprayed in the face with it, he loves being wet.

There is never a dull moment when Reed is around water. Bath time is always fun and a happy time. Whenever we are in the backyard we have to restrain him from getting in the dog water bowl (as we found out on Easter). Kiddie pools are always a hit. But the best one so far has to be during a recent rain storm.

It was early evening and I had just finished the rush to mow the grass before the clouds rolled in. We were inside and it had already started raining. Reed caught a glimpse of the older kids running around in the cul-de-sac through the window next to the door. He proceeded to open the door (he can do that now) and walk out to the covered entryway porch. We watched the whole thing play out… after all he was in a very good mood that night, and it is always fun to watch his mind work.

He stood on the front porch and yelled out the kids that were running up and down the street, playing in the pouring rain. Reed wanted to be out there SOO bad! Well, there wasn’t anything stopping him… he can negotiate the stairs himself, so I was there with him in case he needed me.

As he eased down the stairs, he stepped farther into the rain, and he started to get very excited about the constant drops on the back of his head and in his face when he looked up. He had a huge grin on his face by the time he reached the last step and stood up. He then wandered into the front yard and driveway and absolutely loved it.

It wasn’t a very intimidating rain storm, but strong enough to start making puddles in the street for the kids to pounce through. Reed wanted some of that too, so hear is where Dad stripped down to his shorts and went out to join him.

I got the wagon and carted him around the street and made sure to go fast enough to splash some puddles. I loved it and so did he.

I’m glad I followed his lead and remembered for a short moment what it was like to play in the rain and splash in the puddles.

RB

This was a big month of changes for Reed. On the development side, he has pushed out around 6 teeth in the span of only 3 weeks! He’s been a constant drooler, as seen by the constant ring around his neckline of any shirt he wears. He is also pushing his limits on stairs by taking little steps up without the aide of a handhold or even bending over to step up. He is doing the same thing going down little steps, but that is a little uneasy for us to watch since it is inevitable he will bite it one time… but he IS pretty resilient.

The biggest change for Reed this month was his move from the nanny to full-time daycare. We had already discussed the change for the fall, but the nanny’s own situation had changed where she would need to leave by 4:45pm everyday. That just wasn’t going to work for either of us working parents, so we had to jump on the situation and find what was available. Luv ‘N Care is literally right across the street from our neighborhood. It was our first choice of 3 options, and they had an immediate opening for his age range. We made the move and gave the notice to the nanny that we would be leaving after one more week. The nanny was very sad to see Reed go, but we took pictures of her and the boys, and framed them for a “thank you” gift to her.

We also had to inform Granny B about the change… you see she has grown quite accustomed to watching her first grandchild about once a week, so we knew this was going to be the hardest bombshell to drop. Her response: “Well, you are not paying me, so couldn’t you just keep bringing him here one day a week?” Not so fast, Mom…. I mean Grandma…. sorry. She did understand and knew it wouldn’t last forever…. but then she can always just wait for the next one to come around.

RB

I feel like a broken record because I am always telling people that everyday Reed does new things.  But it’s true.  All of you mommies know it too.

Reed is a great eater, but he is less reluctant to eat new foods if he watches someone else eat it first.  The latest example of this is watermelon.  I have been trying to feed him watermelon for a week or so.  The first time he watched someone else eat it he was all over it.  The next night he wouldn’t touch it.  I asked Randy to take a bite so Reed would eat.  Sure enough, as soon as someone else was enjoying the deliciousness Reed was all over it.  Weird little copycat.

He still doesn’t speak english very often, but he definitely talks all the time.  So far he says mama, dada, and what’s that.  He is starting to try to mimic me when I speak to him, but he is definitely behind on the verbal progress.  I am hoping that when we move him to day care in the fall the structure and curriculum will help him become more verbal.  (I also better watch what I wish for!)

Reed has become my little climber.  We bought him a small table and chairs from IKEA several months ago and the first thing he did was climb into the chair and try to climb on the table.  He also has decided that he likes to get into the bathtub by himself (when there is no water) to play with his toys.  He doesn’t even mind that in order to get in the tub he has to bump his head.  Hilarious.

Reed loves books.  Most of the time we put him to bed with a few books.  If he isn’t angry about going to sleep he will turn the pages for a little while and then put himself to sleep.  In the morning he will wake up and start babbling.  30 minutes later I will walk in his room and he is reading his books to himself.  I absolutely love that time of the morning.  It might be my favorite time of the day.

This kid is also obsessed with water.  As you can see from the previous post he loves the slip n slide.  He also loves to play in any puddle or container of water he can find.  Unfortunately this often includes him playing with the water cooler and Logan’s water dish.  Call me a bad mom, but I let him play.  I don’t care if he is in the backyard and splashing to hs heart’s content in the water trough or spilling water all over the bathroom floor.  I just love to see how happy playing in water makes him. 

One last thing…he is finally good at drinking out of a straw.  He likes to take a big drink of my water right after I get it from the water cooler.  Of course the water is very cold so he makes the funniest face.  (As soon as we get home tonight I will have Randy post a picture of his face after he gets his little brain freeze.  It’s hilarious)

There are so many fun little stories I could tell about sweet Reed.  It makes me realize that I need to update the blog more often because I hate writing long posts like this and no one wants to read a 2 page blog post!  I will try to work on that 🙂

Finally.  After 14 months of life Reed finally has some teeth.  Over the past 2 weeks Reed has broekn through 4 top teeth.  The funny part is that he doesn’t have his two front teeth.  Oue neighbor is a dentist and as we were chatting in the street last night I asked him to take a peek at Reed’s teeth to make sure nothing was wrong.   He took a look and could see the front two teeth right under the gums.  He thinks they should pop out any day now. 

Thank Goodness!

Do you remember summer days when you were a kid?  The only thing on your agenda was to play and have fun…and do it outside!  Now that we are grown up we have to think about work and bills and obligations and looking nice.  What happened to the days when we wanted to get in the pool, get out and dry off, and then get back in?  I have turned into my mother because now I say, ‘I just washed my hair, I don’t want to get it wet’.  Or, ‘I just got out of the pool and now I’m dry.  I don’t want to get back in’. 

We should all try to be a little more like our kid selves and get back in the water…even if you have already dried off!!

These pictures are from a little b-b-q we had at the house this weekend.  I love the kids and how much fun they had playing in the water.

Seriously.  Look at this picture and try not to laugh.  Reed doesn’t like the dog’s tails.  Especially when it whacks him in the face.

Reed is still changing every day.  I love to watch his little mind develop and expand.  He is still a very sweet boy, but his toddler side is starting to show itself more and more 🙂

1. Books – he loves books, but he doesn’t like to sit in my lap and read them.  He likes to take them and flip the pages himself.  His all time favorite is “Rocker Babies Wear Jeans”.  Out of all the books on the shelf he will search for that book and when he finds it he gets very animated and talkative.  Hilarious.

2. Babbling – once he finds his words I think we are in for a treat.  He babbles ALL the time.  He is gesturing more and more and I know he understands what I’m saying to him, but he doesn’t have the words yet.  He says Mama and Dada and I think he understands the difference.  This is such a fun development.

3. Food – Our toddler is not the easy going eater the baby was.  He is very particular about what he wants to eat and when.  One day he loves turkey lunchmeat, the next day he throws it on the ground.  Basically he is in the stage of wanting whatever someone else is eating.  He is still eating a good variety of foods, but I can not get this child to eat any green vegetables.  He spits them out or throws them on the ground for Logan.

4. Teeth – This isn’t a normal category, but Reed still only has 2 teeth!!  Can you believe that?  He is 13 months old.  He can pretty much chew anything with just gums.  At his 12 month checkup Dr. Purnell said there is a correlation between children who teethe late and have late growth spurts.  He expects that once Reed gets more teeth (he expects Reed will get 4 or 5 at a time which should be pretty miserable for him) he will hit a big growth spurt and catch up.  However, at his 12 month appt he was 50th percentile in both height and weight, so it’s not like he is way behind.

5 – Toys – His all time favorite toy is still balloons – I have mentioned it before, but this kid is obsessed them!  I cringe when I see one in a place where I can’t get him one too.  We were at HEB on Wednesday and there was one on display.  I couldn’t find where to get one and he was fussy the rest of our shopping trip.  Not so fun for me. 

6 – The new house – Reed LOVES the new house!!!  We went from 1750 square feet to 2900!  The first time Reed came to the new house I gave him a balloon and he literally walked around in circles babbling non stop for hours.  Until we moved I didn’t realize how much we all needed the space.  The other funny thing that started when we moved into the new house is the carpet.  The old house only had carpet in his bedroom; this one has it in the living, dining and study plus all the bedrooms.  Reed will randomly stop running around and lay face down on the carpet.  I have no idea why he does it but it totally cracks us up.  He is not a quiet or still child so it’s hilarious to watch him go from running and babbling one second, to face down quiet and still the next. 

Sorry for the long post but I have been slacking lately and needed to catch up!!!

J

Reed is obsessed with balloons.  As I mentioned previously, we knew he loved balloons, so we had tons of them at his birthday party last weekend.  This also means we have about 15 balloons in his playroom. 

Every night this week when we get home and put him down, the very first thing he does is walk into his playroom and grab two balloons.  Then he proceeds to walk around all night holding both balloons.  He rolls around on them, tries to bite them, shows them to Logan, etc.  He is so attached to these balloons that when we take our nightly walk he takes a balloon with him (I only let him have one) in the stroller and holds it the entire walk.  We really need to take a picture of how he holds it in the stroller.  It’s like the balloon is his best friend ever.  Funny boy.